Streets safer since pub hours shake-up

May 25 2006 By Neil Elkes, Birmingham Mail

LATER pub and bar opening hours have made Birmingham nightspots safer, according to city licensing bosses.

Six months after the new Licensing Act came into force people are less likely to be robbed or attacked on Broad Street or in Sutton Coldfield town centre and other popular destinations.

And the main reason high-lighted by licensing and business chiefs is the stag-gered closing times preventing clashes when all the pubs kick out at the same time.

Instead of up to 50,000 drunk party-goers storming onto Broad Street fighting over a small number of taxis and buses, they now disperse over a longer period.

West Midlands Police said that violent crime in the region has fallen by four per cent in the six months.

And the latest figures for Broad Street show a 17 per cent fall in crime year on year.

Mike Olley, of the Broad Street Business Improvement District, said that the act had made the Golden Mile a lot better and safer.

He said: "Before November everybody had to leave the bars at the same time, there were on average 30,000, sometimes as many of 50,000 people trying to get home.

"There aren't enough taxis in the West Midlands, let alone Broad Street, to meet that demand. It is no wonder there is trouble."

As well as staggered opening hours, taxi marshals, 100 high profile door supervisors and a police officer on every street corner have also helped cut crime. It was a similar story in Sutton Coldfield where drink related disorder fell by 94 per cent over the Christmas period.

City Council head of licensing Pete Barrow said: "People are changing their drinking habits, they have chill-out time for a coffee or go out later instead of rushing drinks."

Supt Keith Baldwin, of West Midlands Police, said the World Cup would provide a test of the new legislation.

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